" Jackson has filled it out with an enormous amount of back story relevant to the characters at hand. In doing so, he is able to provide a titanic opening battle sequence, one in which a wealthy ancient kingdom of dwarves alongside the Lonely Mountain is decimated by fearsome giant trolls." What/ What the Hell?! Why do I get the feeling that the Trolls are Orcs, and the other Kingdom is Moria. . . is Peter just going to change the entire history of The Dwarves and Moria. Lacrimae, you may have been right about no Balrog, but it is oh so wrong, and oh so inconsistent, not only with the textual history but with the other damn movies in the series! If the Orcs WIN at Azanulbizar and are set up as the reason the dwarves don't retake Moria. . . so much WRONG on so many levels. The main points of the actual Hobbit story look and sound to be very well done, and mostly faithfully done, but I have the increasing sinking feeling that Jackson, Boyens, Walsh et al went back and pulled up The History of Durin's Folk for the sole purposes of entirely re-writing it and misinforming the audience about the details. "Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"

"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."

That isn't what is most bothersome. I ferreted out that the "trolls" are likely big orcs. Its the decimated
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part, and this business of just a few dwarves escaping a slaughter that concerns me, since it fell out exactly the opposite way in the dwarven histories. I can't shake the feeling that, where Dwarven history, as with some of The Necromancer business, is concerned, Jackson is going to make a great deal of noise (that laymen will take, erroneously, as deeply faithful cannon translation) about extracting wonderful material from The Appendicies, when in fact he is going back and completely mismatching and reconfiguring them like an imaginative child with LEGO sets from several different franchises.

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And/or:

They confused Giant Orcs/Goblins with Giant Trolls

And/or

There are simply Trolls also present at the battle (alongside Orcs)

"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"

"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."

Actually, I think I got the initial link from TheOneRing's facebook page. I am tired from staying up all night reading reviews and watching clips. I took a minute long break watching a clip of a Tina Turner song I hadn't heard before, and then back to Wizards and wargs. Once I have napped, I will try to find the link for you, but the quote was exact, as I copy/pasted it rather than re-typing it. "Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"

"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."

for saving a very tired man from having to perform a lengthy search. I really wanted to provide Lacrimae the links she desired, but my eyes are red and weary. I shouldn't even still be reading these posts! "Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"

"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."

"In doing so, he is able to provide a titanic opening battle sequence, one in which a wealthy ancient kingdom of dwarves alongside the Lonely Mountain is decimated by fearsome giant trolls. One of the only survivors is the heir to the throne, Thorin, whose effort to reclaim the kingdom will occupy the thrust of the story."

There clearly seems to be some confusion in here. It rather depends on whether we see "alongside" as meaning "in addition to" or "next to". The trolls (for which we assume Orcs) push us one way but the description of Thorin's attempt to reclaim it being the main thrust of the film, and the description of the survivors push us in the opposite.

On balance it seems more likely that the author believes himself to be discussing a single thing I.e. has rolled up Dale, Erebor and Moria into one.

I know this is a stretch, but the reviewer is clearly on about Erebor, which we know gets destroyed in the opening sequence. As far as I can tell from the reviews so far, it seems that Azanulbizar happens in a later part of the film, with Balin narrating it. From most reviews it seems that the opening prologue is concerned with the destruction of Erebor, so I have to think the reviewer somehow mistook a dragon (one we don't see much) with a 'giant troll'. I know it's a stretch but what else could destroy the Dwarven kingdom next to the Lonely Mountain? Because alongside suggests physically close to rather than 'other than'.

Lets just wait and see anyway. We can speculate much purely on what may be an error. I saw someone describe the Stone Trolls as 'giant Orcs'.

On balance it seems more likely that the author believes himself to be discussing a single thing I.e. has rolled up Dale, Erebor and Moria into one.

That's what I thought too. If the two setpieces occur adjacent to each other, it wouldn't be surprising if some reviewers unfamiliar with the source material failed to realize they were seeing two completely separate events.

Even accounting for the team's penchant for geographic compression, Moria and Erebor are still two different places.

My issue isn't with what is almost certainly a touch of confusion for the reviewer
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it is the way he describes the confrontation of dwarves and "trolls" orcs. It sounds like the Dwarves loosing a battle that they won. Which is a big damned bit of revision if true.

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In Reply To

On balance it seems more likely that the author believes himself to be discussing a single thing I.e. has rolled up Dale, Erebor and Moria into one.

That's what I thought too. If the two setpieces occur adjacent to each other, it wouldn't be surprising if some reviewers unfamiliar with the source material failed to realize they were seeing two completely separate events.

Even accounting for the team's penchant for geographic compression, Moria and Erebor are still two different places.

"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"

"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."